To a Dead Journalist Behind that white brow now the mind simply sleeps — the eyes, closed, the lips, the mouth, the chin, no longer useful, the prow of the nose. But rumors of the news, unrealizable, cling still among those silent, butted features, a sort of wonder at this scoop come now, too late: […]

Patio Pundit discusses German politics. Warning: draws on actual experience. A friend of mine, an ordinarily mild-mannered lawyer, lived in Germany for a few years. It used to drive him crazy that native Germans absolutely refused to cross the street or so much as step off the sidewalk against the light, even if no cars […]

Charles Murtaugh reports, and links to other reports, that the similarity score between human and chimpanzee DNA is down from 98.5% to 95% or so. Robert Musil muses that maybe the chimp’s “junk” DNA overlaps the human’s “working” DNA or vice versa; Paul Orwin sets him straight, convincingly. With all due respect to the real […]

John Densmore congratulates himself for not selling Doors songs for ads. This irks Meryl Yourish, understandably. Meryl objects that Densmore oughtn’t to preen himself about his integrity when it matters not one whit to his financial security whether he sells the back catalog or not. Still, I’m happy he didn’t sell it even though I’d […]

Good site. Go browse if you haven’t yet. I broke my maidenhead there for Mass Post Day by recycling my old Salinger piece and got accused of plagiarizing Ian Hamilton’s biography, a book I haven’t read and don’t intend to read, for my trouble. Sheesh. (Update: Apparently the guy who accused me of plagiarism spoofed […]

What’s wrong with “preemptive” war, exactly? What’s new about it? All wars are preemptive. Wars cost lives and money, and can only be justified to preempt the presumably worse damage of not going to war. One of the lessons of the 20th century is that a little more preemption would have saved a good deal […]

Silence No word, no lie, can cross a carven lip; No thought is quick behind a chiselled brow; Speech is the cruel flaw in comradeship, Whose self-bemusing ease daunts like a blow Though unintended, irrevocable! For wound, a mere quip dealt, no salve is found Though poet be bled dry of words to tell Why […]